WHICH WAY WILL HE GO? NBC isn’t worried about live action in its Olympics coverage, Phil Mushnick writes. During water polo coverage this week, it routinely cut away during key action. Photo: Getty Images

There it was! Again! Indisputable proof that the more cameras, gizmos and garnish, the worse the basic coverage. More proof that you can lead a force to technology but you can’t make it think.

This week, NBC’s exclusive, same-day Olympic coverage — once again, often cut and pasted for late primetime consumption — included a compelling men’s water polo match, the United States of Speedo vs. Montenegro.

With 1:36 left, play on and the U.S. up, 7-6, someone in charge decided that this was a good time to abandon live (perhaps) play to show people watching it.

Montenegro stopped a U.S. shot then quickly countered. Borrowing a modern absurdity from absurd modern basketball broadcasts, analyst Wolf Wigo hollered, “They’ve got numbers!” Good cry, Wolf, but we already were riveted.

But it was then, with Montenegro in desperate attack to tie the score, that NBC’s audience was “treated” to a sideline/poolside shot of Montenegro’s bench standing, anxiously watching its side’s desperate attack to tie the score, which — call me crazy — was what NBC’s viewers wanted to be doing!

How do you shout “Nurse!” in Montenegrin?

There was more (or less). Later, with the U.S. in possession, still up one, Wigo and a graphic told us that the shot clock was down to six seconds. The man with the ball would be forced to shoot or throw a quick pass. TV’s only sensible choice: Stay high and wide to show us.

But that’s when the director cut to a close-up of the man with the ball, eliminating the chance to see a shot or a pass. No one in that natatorium, during those moments, was peering through binoculars, focusing on the face of the fellow with the ball. But NBC’s audience was stuck with only that.

Just awful.

But it’s the kind of slick, bad, backward TV that is ushered by progress. Advance to the rear!

Sources: ESPN-NY leans toward chasing Mets

According to strong sources, it now appears that ESPN Radio-NY (heard only on 98.7 FM come next month) has shifted attention from the Yankees to the Mets. Both teams’ radio deals — the Yanks’ with WCBS, the Mets’ with CBS Radio-owned WFAN — expire after this season.

According to the sources, the Mets represent to ESPN “a better value,” while the Yankees have interpreted ESPN’s courtship as an opportunity to make another big ticket loser out of another radio partner.

WFAN pays about $6 million per for the Mets, while the Yankees get roughly $14 million per by WCBS, the latter not only a losing deal, it explains why every other pitch is attached to a sponsorship read by John Sterling or Suzyn Waldman.

“Right now,” one source advises, “it’s 60-40 that ESPN will wind up with the Mets’ deal instead of the Yanks’. The Yanks would go to FAN or stay on WCBS, but the station has to be willing to lose money or, at best, break even.

“ESPN would be willing to lose money for a couple of years on a Yankee deal, but not a truckload, and the Yanks always want a truckload for everything.”

* So who, currently, is the biggest player for American TV sports rights? Fox? ESPN? CBS? NBC? Turner?

Nope. It’s Al Jazeera, owned by the fabulously oil-rich country of Qatar.

To feed its new beIN sports network, Al Jazeera has been hurling barrels of money for rights to the world’s biggest soccer leagues, and it’s eager to buy into all sports — here, there and everywhere.

In order to enter the U.S. market, Al Jazeera, an international rights specialist this week told us, is willing to pay cable operators to clear beIN. In other words, Al Jazeera doesn’t want to be paid by operators, to make room for its sports goods it’ll pay them!

“The players here for big league soccer — Fox, ESPN — are being blown away by Al Jazeera,” the specialist said. “Remember, they’re not competing against a corporation, but a government, and one with more money than it can spend.”

Qatar, despite its blistering heat and inaccessibility, in 2010 won 2022 World Cup soccer rights because it made an offer that drained the senses of FIFA. Governed by Sunni Islamic law, Qatar also is known for systemic repression of women.

Would big league U.S. teams or leagues sell Al Jazeera some or all of its TV rights?

“There would be political issues. And there’s a competitive advantage to a bidder that’s not a company but a country,” the specialist said. “ Yet, where money can talk, money talks. It already has.”

ESPN has hired Bruce Pearl, recently forced out as Tennessee’s basketball coach for committing the NCAA’s version of perjury — lying to investigators.

Every time such a person is hired to provide his or her take on TV or radio, the truth is bound to suffer. If networks support college reforms — removing the fraud and criminality from the norm — they must reform their norm, too.

Then again, while ESPN often suspends and fires staffers for “inappropriate, unacceptable” in-house sexual misconduct, it now features Tiger Woods in house ads.

* There’s nothing connected to new Yankee Stadium that doesn’t include a mugging.

Those who plan to attend Wednesday’s Real Madrid-AC Milan soccer match, be advised that parking at the Stadium’s garage for last week’s Chelsea-Paris St. Germain match was bumped from an obscene $35 (for Yankees games) to XXX-rated $45. Perhaps Bud Selig personally checked and found that “affordable.”

Ahh, Bud. Wonder if he was awake for the almost midnight end to Sunday’s Red Sox-Yankees ESPNer, a 10-inning, 3-2 final.

Wonder if he would have enjoyed telling the kids in his life that they would have to leave a close game long before it ended or otherwise arrive home at 1:30 a.m., or later, Monday morning.

* As Howard Cosell said on the passing of George Halas, “It was inevitable.”